Something About A Memory On Veterans Day 2015

            I posted this memory story awhile back, but it seemed appropriate to print it again and to make it a part of today’s blog; after all, it is Veterans Day. The recollection recorded in my story below is still so real for me that I can place myself back in time to the exact moment when my brother and I had to tell our Daddy good-bye, while our mother stood by helplessly.

Today, I have thought about all the men and women, who as our dad did, bravely have served our country. Countless courageous soldiers have fought in conflict after conflict. Brave also, though obviously in a different way, are those who have had to stay behind and wait. I understand these partings are numerous and unfortunately necessary, but they are also painful and so very, very sad.

Every time I see a soldier return home and greet his or her child or children for the first time in months or years, I cannot hold back the tears. My reaction never changes and I understand why. I experienced that awful pain. I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. My dad returned from both World War II (though I didn’t know him then) and Vietnam. Not all families have had that same fortune. For them, I am very, very sorry.

In my world Veterans Day is so important, for it is a time to remember, a time to be grateful, and a time simply to say, “Thank you.”

THE MEMORY

For a ten year old girl, way back in the late 50s, life should have been filled with dolls, ballet, books, first bras, and the beginning dreams of boys. In my life, however, age ten presented me with my first experience of loss. It was the time that my dad said good-bye for eighteen months and more.

I knew he was leaving. I had heard the whispers and watched my mother’s intermittent tears, but I kept my distance from emotions I didn’t understand and was yet to endure. When I learned of his leaving, I became aloof. I watched. I listened, but I stifled my feelings. I can remember even scoffing at my mother when she cried. It somehow it seemed so weak. Not until the morning of my dad’s departure did I allow myself to feel, and when I did, the sensation caught me by surprise and I was submerged in a sadness that has never fully disappeared.

As surely it must, the day of his leaving arrived. My dad was going to Cambodia, Vietnam, places whose names I did not know then. I remember waking to a cool dawn. I heard the shuffle of bare feet in the hallway, the flush of a toilet, the running of water, and the familiar kitchen noises as my mom prepared breakfast. I lay in bed listening and breathing ever so lightly. In the stillness of my room, I begrudgingly allowed the early morning sounds to slip into my world. I finally pulled myself from bed and stood on the cold, hardwood floor of my bedroom preparing to say good-bye cursorily. I simply did not comprehend how incredibly ill prepared inwardly I was to let my dad go. I could not have imagined earlier the feeling I was soon to encounter.

At ten years old, I could be defiant. I could shield myself from emotion. I was strong, I knew. Even as I stared that morning into the dreary gray around me, I was certain I would not cry even though, as the minutes passed in my cold, shadowy room, tightness was beginning to grow in my throat and chest. I stepped from the chilly floor onto a softly matted throw rug and reached for the light switch. Instant, yellow brightness brought details from the shadows. Everything became clear, including my pale blue eyes still weak with sleep. I stared at my reflection in the oversized mirror. My red curls were tousled in disarray. My pink, baby doll pajamas were wrinkled. One slightly sunburned and freckled shoulder protruded above the ruffled sleeve. I looked at the blue walls and the orderly, flowered wallpaper reflected behind my bed. I suddenly hated it.

A quick scurry of hasty movements and the soft scrape of a chair against the kitchen linoleum alerted me to the moment I had been avoiding. I grabbed my terrycloth robe and threw it on hurriedly. I opened the bedroom door and there in the hallway, attired smartly in his dress blues, was my father. He reached for me abruptly without a word and as if on cue, I began to cry. I held to him tightly, my arms clutched around his neck; my cries were mute against his chest. I could feel tears coating my face and my father’s pale, blue shirt became moist against my cheek. I don’t remember anything else except my crying as I awkwardly gripped him. My body was tight as though to gain strength from its rigidity. Finally my father’s arms moved from around me but I could not let him go.

“I have to go now,” he said. I could hear the quivering voice above me.

“No!” I cried, and looked with fear into his blue eyes. They too were wet. He hugged me once again and I sobbed some more.

I don’t recall how long we stood in the hallway with my mother and brother helplessly watching. It must have been several minutes. Without realizing how or when though, I found myself standing suddenly alone in the semi-dark hallway outside my bedroom door. I turned slowly into my room, fell into the wrinkled covers and cried some more. I don’t know how much time passed before I got up that day, but when I did, I looked sickeningly around my room and I knew it had to change. I spent the day scraping wallpaper from my wall and as I watched the ordered flowers drop in wet curls as I scraped and pulled, I cried.

When I hear my mother tell the story about that day she simply says she’d never seen anyone so obsessed with anything. Nor had she seen so many tears.

“You scraped and cried. You scraped and cried all day long,” she has told me over the years.

I remember that. The next day, I painted my room lavender. I realize now it was a necessary change for me, one that I could control, one that could not hurt me as the greater change, the loss of my father had.

When my dad came home after eighteen months he was home very briefly before he was sent away again, this time for a year. That parting was tearless. When I was thirteen he was home to stay, but I had changed by then. Thirteen had brought boys, lipstick, and cheerleading yells. I was no longer Daddy’s little girl. I would never again be his little girl, for I would never let him in to hurt me again.

Now, years later, I look back at my dad differently. The bitterness is gone. He is no longer the ogre who left me crying in the hallway. He is my dad, and although I may never give him the chance to hug me again as he did when I was ten, I do love him. Age ten began years of pain, but the feelings of abandonment have been resolved. I still think of a potential hug in a hallway somewhere, but when I do, it brings an incredible feeling of panic. I’m afraid it would let loose the sorrow and another flow of tears. And there’s no wallpaper to come down.

Note: Our beautiful mother died in early 2010 at the age of almost 96 and our dad, the veteran we honor today, passed away in 2014, four days short of turning 103. Our family misses them both.